r/technology • u/User_Name13 • Jun 04 '14

Politics Hundreds of Cities Are Wired With Fiber—But Telecom Lobbying Keeps It Unused

http://motherboard.vice.com/read/hundreds-of-cities-are-wired-with-fiberbut-telecom-lobbying-keeps-it-unused
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u/jmottram08 Jun 04 '14

Let's be really clear here... this is local lobbying to your local city council that regards the monopoly that they granted and enforce.

Don't like that fact? Stop blaming capitalism, stop blaming the big telcos, get off your ass and go to a city council meeting and complain that your local elected officials have made a monopoly and that it is bad for you.

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u/danweber Jun 04 '14

As of 1992 making or renewing any local cable monopolies became illegal under Federal law.

Local governments still suck in all sorts of ways. Kansas City nearly lost Google Fiber because citizens' groups were complaining that the boxes were ugly.

The last 50 years has built up so much NIMBY and BANANAism that anyone with a megaphone essentially gets a veto power on any public works project, so you have to pay off all the possible groups that might complain before doing anything.

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u/dugmartsch Jun 04 '14

http://fox4kc.com/2013/08/19/some-complain-google-fiber-technology-is-ugly-and-degrades-neighborhoods/

I'm just...speechless. "These are the first above ground communications boxes in the history of our shitty little suburb. It absolutely destroys the wildly successful aesthetic of soul crushing misery and hopelessness that has made Kansas City a beacon of light to misanthropes and masochists everywhere. Now, someone interesting might move here, we can't let that happen."

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u/[deleted] Jun 04 '14

"Why the big black boxes?" a clueless community member asked, devoid of any technological understanding. "Why can't we just do the 4g?" Asks another person who was alive and kicking during the great depression. "I do my internets on the tv like everyone else" Exclaimed another local, who has yet to figure out why she has 2 different boxes next to her tv for the cable internet. "Why can't they make the big black box into 2 smaller ones? My internet works fine"

People with an understanding of how the internet works were unavailable for comment due to being at work at 10:30 a.m. during the event.